UNITED STATES
Salt Lake Tribune
By Peter Steinfels
The New York Times
News reports surrounding the review of Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States that the Vatican has organized have focused on the possibility that Rome plans to bar gay men from ordination to the priesthood, regardless of their readiness to remain faithful to their pledge of celibacy.
Such a ban would have serious consequences. It would reverberate far beyond the gay candidates for ordination whom it might directly affect and even beyond the celibate gay priests who would inevitably take it as a judgment on their own calling and service.
The Catholic Church's moral stand on same-sex attraction and sexual activity may well prove to be a touchstone issue for the next generation of Catholics' attitudes toward church authority, just as the renewed papal condemnation of contraception proved to be for Catholics in the 1970s and '80s.
But important as that question may be, it is not the only matter at stake in the official scrutiny now beginning of Catholic seminary education. The Vatican instruction outlining the project contains 96 questions ''as a guide'' for the teams of visitors who will interview students and faculty members at approximately 200 seminaries and submit their findings to Rome.